Methods for superimposing optical information in the realm of scanning microscopy are known from actual practice. In this process, CCD images are often superimposed with additional image information. In this context, the additional image information is often a scanned image. Through such a superimposition, additional information can be obtained about the specimen to be examined, said information going beyond the information that an individual CCD image and, for example, a scanned image can provide on their own. For example, potentials in individual calls can be depicted here. The normally colored CCD image can be superimposed with an image or with image information that supplies merely light-and-dark information. The superimposition of a CCD image with additional image information yields a higher resolution of the image depiction in comparison to individual images. Ultimately, the information obtained through a CCD image is increased by a superimposition with at least one additional piece of information.
With the prior-art methods for superimposing optical information, it is a common procedure to carry out a superimposition manually or by making complicated adjustments in order to achieve congruence of the superimposed optical information. This is extremely time-consuming, as a result of which the individual scanning microscopes do not achieve a high specimen throughput rate.
Particularly when a CCD image is superimposed with a scanned image, system-related differences and shifts in the images occur in terms of the position, rotation and size of the images that have to be compensated for by manual processing or complicated adjustments in order to achieve a congruence of the images.